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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22531513">A handful of hope in our hearts</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuhi_san/pseuds/Yuhi_san'>Yuhi_san</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fair Game is just implied, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Post-Season/Series 07 Finale, Robyn and Clover used to be partners at the Academy, Robyn and Qrow need to be friends, Tags to be added for chapter 2, fair game, is that also what we call their platonic relationships?, jailbirds, or more likely Robyn sees the potential that was there, what is Robyn and Fionas ship name?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:33:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22531513</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuhi_san/pseuds/Yuhi_san</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Robyns and Clovers relationship had become complicated at best over the years. But she still believed he deserved to be remembered as the man he was under the all-consuming loyalty that had become his fatal flaw. At least a few more people should know.</p><p>Looking at the man next to her, she wants to offer all the merge comfort she has. She shares old memories, for her sake, for Qrows and for the memory of the man that was Clover Ebi.</p><p>-</p><p>Robyn comes to and tries to wrap her head around her situation, Clovers death and Qrow Branwens role in all of this.<br/>Hurt and with her aura shattered, there isn’t much Robyn can about her arrest at the crash site.</p><p>On the flight to Atlas, there isn’t much more she can do but talk. Two near strangers share their grief and the little hope they still have.<br/>But if Robyn has been taught one thing in this seemingly endless night, it is that a spark can easily turn into a fire.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clover Ebi &amp; Robyn Hill, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Qrow Branwen &amp; Clover Ebi, Robyn Hill &amp; Qrow Branwen, Robyn Hill/Fiona Thyme</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A handful of hope in our hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Still not entirely over Clovers death but hey, we are holding up, right?</p><p>I think Robyn and Qrow would be great friends and all three of them would have had an amazing dynamic. Like the lesbian/bi/gay trio that is ultra-competent in battle but otherwise has the most chaotic energy to them probably since team STRQ.<br/>Robyn would be done with their romantic and sexual tension three seconds flat and it would be hilarious.</p><p>Also, as many people I head canon that Robyn and Clover were partners back at the academy, Imagine two alpha people with absolutely opposition ideas on how to get something done dealing with close partnership for four years straight.</p><p> </p><p>Also, please note that english is not my first language. i appreciate any help you can offer!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing about Clover Ebis Semblance that most people don’t seem to understand is that it only ever affects him, never rubbing off on the people around him.<br/>
So when Robyn comes to at the crash side, every part of her body hurting and her ears ringing but miraculously without a concussion or broken bones, she is not going to give that bastard any undue credit for it.</p><p>Neither is he what pulls her back to the here and now. Instead, it is a noise that seems to come from far away, piercing through the fog in her brain and chilling her to the bones. Robyn knows she will remember this noise, even before she becomes lucid enough to place what it was exactly that she heard.</p><p>Growing more aware quickly, she can make out two silhouettes against the light of the sun, not too far away from her. She squints, but even then she can merely tell that they are on the ground, hunched or even laying. Her stomach sinks at the inevitable thought of what this might mean. The wind carries a sound over to her, not quite distinguishable between the howling of the wind itself and the noise of the approaching aircrafts. It is quieter than the noise that she heard before but no less chilling.<br/>
A part of Robyn does not want to listen too closely. That way she can easier pretend she does not recognize the broken sound of misery and anguish. It’s a noise she knows to the deepest of her core.<br/>
There was just one noise worse than this in her recent memory.<br/>
Robyn struggles to sit up, her eyes franticly searching for the psychopathic scorpion. But that miserable creature is nowhere in sight.</p><p>After that, everything goes faster than what she feels it has any right to.</p><p>The soldiers arrive and arrest her before she even makes it to her feet. For obstructing the arrest of a wanted fugitive. As if this in and on itself isn’t ridiculous enough, one of the officers has the galls to tell her: “If I didn’t see you just come to, I would add complicity to murder to your charges.”<br/>
Robyn wants to break every bone in his body twice. Instead she bite her lips, though with great effort. Even she knows when she is beaten. In her current condition, there is nothing Robyn can do but let them take her to Atlas and try to figure things out from there.</p><p>Oh and she <em>will</em>.</p><p>There is nothing and no one who will stop her from returning to Mantle, to her people, the Happy Huntresses, to Fiona-<br/>
Robyn is startled out of her thoughts by the sound of guns being raised, safeties clicked off and eventually the sound of snow crunching under shoes. She looks up from her cuffed wrists to see that five o’clock shadow has approached the other soldiers.</p><p>No… not five o’clock shadow. Qrow.</p><p>He does not have a weapon with him and even from here she can see how he forces the tension out of his muscles. His fist however remains firmly clenched, even as he lifts his arms, holds them out like an offering, ready to be cuffed.<br/>
The six soldiers surrounding him are tense and ready, weapons aimed at him. There is confidence in the way two of them move closer, the taller one calling out the crimes Qrow is being arrested for. Treason and murder. Qrow merely tells them he was not the killer and that Tyrian escaped. That is all he says.<br/>
They shake their head, not believing a word. There is obvious evidence, they say.</p><p>Robyn laughs, but it turns into a cough quickly. Her lungs are strained from both the smoke and the biting cold of Solitas. But a bitter laugh is all she has to offer for the people that are the true traitors here. At least for now.<br/>
They are blind fools, but what did she expect from Ironwoods brainless lapdogs?</p><p>She can count the number of sentence she exchanged with Qrow on one hand and with the way he has most of his back angled towards her, she has not yet gotten a look at his face. Still, Robyn knows with intense clarity that the man is not responsible for any murder. She does not need her Semblance to know that.<br/>
There is blood on his hands and straining his clothes. But the way he moves makes it clear that he isn’t injured gravely enough for it to be his own. He looks a little worse for wear but again, none of it seems bad enough to suggest that his aura has been shattered.</p><p> </p><p>Robyn didn’t know who Qrow was when she first crossed paths with him at the barrier to Amity Colosseum. She just saw a grouchy huntsman that looked nothing like the kind of people Ironwood would have working with the military, let alone his precious Ace Ops. But she did her homework, of course.</p><p>Turns out the grouch was Qrow Branwen, considered one of the best huntsmen alive all over Remnant and even his team from Beacon was infamous in their own right. Other than that there were rumors about his more than questionable and concerning habits. Other rumors were far more unsavory, usually having to do with his rather unclear past before Beacon Academy. Robyn didn’t pay them much mind; she was someone who based her opinion of what she saw and knew to be true, not some random gossip.<br/>
Apparently, he also used to be a teacher at Signal Academy.</p><p>(And oh, weren’t all these things individually cans of worms that Robyn had no desire to touch with a ten foot pole. She didn’t even want to think about the combination of it all.)</p><p>But most importantly, she has seen him fight.</p><p>And these stupid soldiers really think that Qrow is resigning himself to a fate that he cannot escape, rather than him deliberately choosing to turn himself in. Idiots, all of them. Robyn doesn’t doubt that Qrow still could take on all of them and win.</p><p>Her attention gets drawn away from them when she catches movement out of the corner of her eyes. Two more soldiers are carrying a stretcher towards another ship. The body they carry is completely covered by a sheet as pristine white as the snow around them. But Robyn knows with the same clarity that sheets must be strained red somewhere out of her sight as she knows this was Clovers body that the men brought away.<br/>
One of the men also holds Qrows bloodied weapon.<br/>
There was so much blood on Qrow, too.</p><p>Her brain had understood that it was Clover Ebi who died – got killed – pretty much the moment the word murder fell for the first time. There really wasn’t any possibility to come to the wrong conclusion, after all.<br/>
And yet, seeing him, even covered by a sheet that won’t really let her see anything, it is something completely different. It only now sinks in, truly, that the man is dead.<br/>
Robyn feels her stomach turn and for a moment she thinks she will throw up.</p><p>A large part of her resents the Ace Op Leader for the choices he made in the end.<br/>
A part of her mourns what the soldier could have been, what he should have been.<br/>
A part of her – and Robyn finds she is surprised by how big it still is – wants to weep for him.<br/>
She wants to cry for Clover.</p><p>He was a fool that put his faith and blind trust in the wrong person but-<br/>
He was good at heart, he never deserved any of this.<br/>
He always had been... he still was-</p><p>Like when she first came to it is a scream that pulls her back to the here and now. This one however is pure pain. Robyn snaps her head around to the source of the scream. There, at Qrows feet, lays a soldier that is clutching at his hand. From the looks of it his wrist could be broken, but it may just be his fingers. She is too far away to tell for sure.<br/>
One of the soldiers at her side rushes forward to help, while the other one drags her along at least somewhat gently. It still gets Robyn to stumble because, Brothers, does her leg hurt.</p><p>When they draw closer the hurt soldier has staggered back to his feet and Robyn watches how Qrow slowly and deliberately uncurls each finger of the hand he likely just used to break that guys bones. His other fist remains firmly closed.</p><p>“I’m…” he starts, voice rough. He clears his throat and glances at the men that are in front of him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” His voice is blank, still a little rough and divided of any emotion except for his exhaustion. Somehow he still manages to convey that he actually means it.<br/>
“Just… Just, don’t”, he adds, a little quieter but voice still steady. It makes her think that breaking the soldiers hand was a knee-jerk reaction more than something done consciously.</p><p>(And just what does that tell her about Qrow Branwen or his current state of mind?)</p><p>Robyn doesn’t get how he can actually mean it when he says sorry. She’d be happy to do break all kinds of bones if she were in any better condition. Then again, she has no idea why he lets them take him like that either. Or how no one has (more or less) accidentally shot him yet. On the other hand, she can’t tell what exactly transpired right now. Either way, no one tries to reach for him again.</p><p>Qrow looks away and Robyn can see how his eyes catch the soldiers that move Clovers body away, just before they disappear in the aircraft. He turns away immediately and for the briefest of moments, his eyes catch hers. It’s nothing but a split-second before he averts his gaze to his feet but it is more than enough for Robyn. His wide, red rimmed eyes are filled to the brim with sadness and hurt that just threatens to spell over.</p><p>She has seen that look many times before in her life.</p><p>The one that stuck with her the most, however, would always be Fiona. She remembers all these years ago, the pain in the eyes of the woman she grew to love more than anything. Even though she does not know for sure what it was that lingered between Qrow and Clover, the memory alone makes her heart break a little for them.<br/>
For now, it is all Robyn needs to know about Qrow.</p><p>The moment passes as one of the soldiers violently shoves Qrow forward. Caught off guard he stumbles but keeps his footing. After that he lets the men roughly manhandle him towards the prison transport.<br/>
It’s not the lethargy or disassociation that often comes with shook, Robyn notes as she is made to follow him in a much more reasonable manner.<br/>
This, too, is a deliberate choice he makes. He consciously decides to allow the soldiers to push him around like that without any resistance.<br/>
Briefly, she wonders if it is self-punishment. But for that he could have chosen worse paths. He would have told them he murdered Clover, then.</p><p>There is nothing Robin can do for now as they are locked up in the back of the ship. But that’s just it.<br/>
Doing what she can and pushing to do even more is her thing. That’s what makes her who she is.</p><p>Robyn Hill, hometown hero.</p><p>So until they are in Atlas and she can do something about her situation (and oh she will), there will be just her and Qrow on the prison transport. With pain and memories, fears and yearnings and lost opportunities. For now and however long it takes to get back to their people, they might be each other’s only alleys and pillars of strength and hope.<br/>
She may not know Qrow Branwen at all, not really.</p><p>But sitting next to him on the prison transport and watching the clenched fist in his lap, she decides it does not matter.<br/>
Even without her Semblance, Robyn likes to think she is a good judge of character. She trusts her instinct that there is more to Qrow than meets the eye, in more than one way.<br/>
And see, one of Robyns other things is reaching out to people who need a hand, no matter what.</p><p>So that is what she does.</p><p>Not just for Mantle, her Huntresses, for Fiona or even herself. She does it for Qrow but just as much for Clover. There is not much more she can offer, not for the man left behind and not for the man that died.<br/>
At least she can do that, offer comfort no matter how small. And offer a memory or two.</p><p>Because no matter their differences at the end, Clover was more than just the Leader of the Ace Ops.<br/>
She will not let him be remembered as just this.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Regardless on my general opinion about Fair Game in canon, the very ending gave me some hope. Qrow is clearly grieving and suffering, but thanks to Robyn he is not all alone in this. And we could see that he will move on and not let this break him. I think Qrow will hold on to what he achived with Clovers help as he does hold on to the pin.</p><p> </p><p>Anyway, chapter two will deal with a lot of head canons that I have about Clover and Robyns academy time that I am now determinated to write down.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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